Hoke Cnty. Bd. of Educ. v. State

Decision Date04 November 2022
Docket Number425A21-2
Citation382 N.C. 386,879 S.E.2d 193
Parties HOKE COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION, et al.; Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education; and Rafael Penn, et al., v. STATE of North Carolina; State Board of Education; Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education; and Philip E. Berger, in his official capacity as President Pro Tempore of the North Carolina Senate, and Timothy K. Moore, in his official capacity as Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives.
CourtNorth Carolina Supreme Court

Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein, LLP, Raleigh, by Melanie Black Dubis, Scott E. Bayzle and Catherine G. Clodfelter ; and Armstrong Law, PLLC, Enfield, by H. Lawrence Armstrong, for Hoke County Board of Education, et al.

Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, by Christopher A. Brook, Wake County, David Hinojosa, and Michael P. Robotti, for Penn Rafael, et al.

Joshua Stein, Attorney General, by Amar Majmundar, Senior Deputy Attorney General, W. Swain Wood, First Assistant Attorney General, Ryan Park, Solicitor General, Sripriya Narasimha, Deputy General Counsel, and South A. Moore, Assistant General Counsel, for the State.

Joshua Stein, Attorney General, by Matthew Tulchin, Special Deputy Attorney General, Tiffany Y. Lucas, Deputy General Counsel, for the State Board of Education.

Womble Bond Dickinson (U.S.) LLP, by Matthew F. Tilley, Russ Ferguson, W. Clark Goodman, Charlotte, and Michael A. Intersoll, for Philip E. Berger, et al.

Higgins Benjamin, PLLC, by Robert N. Hunter, Jr., for Nels Roseland, Controller of the State of North Carolina.

Jane R. Wettach and John Charles Boger, for Professors and Long-Time Practitioners of Constitutional and Educational Law, amici curiae.

Duke Children's Law Clinic, by Peggy D. Nicholson and Crystal Grant; Education Law Center, by David Sciarra, for Duke Children's Law Clinic, Center for Educational Equity, Southern Poverty Law Center, and Constitutional and Education Law Scholars, amici curiae.

Elizabeth Lea Troutman, Eric M. David, Raleigh, Daniel F.E. Smith, Kasi W. Robinson, Greensboro, Richard Glazier, and Matthew Ellinwood, for North Carolina Justice Center, amicus curiae.

John R. Wester, Adam K. Doerr, Charlotte, Erik R. Zimmerman, Emma W. Perry, Chapel Hill, Patrick H. Hill, Charlotte, and William G. Hancock, Raleigh, for North Carolina Business Leaders, amici curiae.

Jeanette K. Doran, for North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law and John Locke Foundation, amici curiae.

HUDSON, Justice.

¶ 1 A quarter-century ago, this Court recognized that the North Carolina Constitution vests in all children of this state the right to the opportunity to receive a sound basic education and that it is the constitutional duty of the State to uphold that right. Leandro v. State , 346 N.C. 336, 345, 488 S.E.2d 249 (1997) ( Leandro I ). In 2004, we affirmed the trial court's determination "that the State had failed in its constitutional duty to provide certain students with the opportunity to attain a sound basic education," and that "the State must act to correct those deficiencies." Hoke County Bd. of Educ. v. State , 358 N.C. 605, 607, 647–48, 599 S.E.2d 365 (2004) ( Leandro II ). At that still-early stage of the litigation, this Court deferred to the legislative and executive branches to craft and implement a remedy to this failure. Id. at 643, 599 S.E.2d 365. However, we also expressly noted that

when the State fails to live up to its constitutional duties, a court is empowered to order the deficiency remedied, and if the offending branch of government or its agents either fail to do so or have consistently shown an inability to do so, a court is empowered to provide relief by imposing a specific remedy and instructing the recalcitrant state actors to implement it.

Id. at 642, 599 S.E.2d 365.

¶ 2 In the eighteen years since, despite some steps forward and back, the foundational basis for the ruling of Leandro II has remained unchanged: today, as in 2004, far too many North Carolina schoolchildren, especially those historically marginalized,1 are not afforded their constitutional right to the opportunity to a sound basic education. As foreshadowed in Leandro II , the State has proven—for an entire generation—either unable or unwilling to fulfill its constitutional duty.

¶ 3 Now, this Court must determine whether that duty is a binding obligation or an unenforceable suggestion. We hold the former: the State may not indefinitely violate the constitutional rights of North Carolina schoolchildren without consequence. Our Constitution is the supreme law of the land; it is not optional. In exercising its powers under the Appropriations Clause, the General Assembly must also comply with its duties under the Education Provisions.

¶ 4 Accordingly, in response to decades of inaction by other branches of state government, the judiciary must act. This Court has long recognized that our Constitution empowers the judicial branch with inherent authority to address constitutional violations through equitable remedies. See, e.g. , Wilson v. Jenkins , 72 N.C. 5, 6 (1875) ; In re Alamance Cnty. Court Facilities , 329 N.C. 84, 94, 405 S.E.2d 125 (1991) ( Alamance ). Today, to remedy that inaction, we exercise that power. For twenty-five years, the judiciary has deferred to the executive and legislative branches to implement a comprehensive solution to this ongoing constitutional violation. Today, that deference expires. If this Court is to fulfill its own constitutional obligations, it can no longer patiently wait for the day, year, or decade when the State gets around to acting on its constitutional duty "to guard and maintain" the constitutional rights of North Carolina schoolchildren. Further deference on our part would constitute complicity in the violation, which this Court cannot accept. Indeed, ultimately "[i]t is the state judiciary that has the responsibility to protect the state constitutional rights of the citizens." Corum v. Univ. of N.C. , 330 N.C. 761, 783, 413 S.E.2d 276 (1992).

¶ 5 After decades of largely choosing to watch this litigation from the sidelines, Legislative Defendants now intervene to allege a variety of procedural and substantive infirmities. They argue that despite twenty-eight years of focusing on statewide problems and statewide solutions, this case really involves only Hoke County. They argue that the passage of the 2021 Budget Act fulfills their constitutional duties under Leandro . They argue that because this case implicates education policies, it raises non-justiciable political questions. They argue that prior to their intervention, this case constituted a friendly suit with no actual controversy before the court.

¶ 6 These claims unequivocally fail. They are untimely, distortive, and meritless. At best, they reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of the history and present reality of this litigation. At worst, they suggest a desire for further obfuscation and recalcitrance in lieu of remedying this decades-old constitutional violation. In any event, they do not prevent this Court from exercising its inherent authority to realize the constitutional right of North Carolina children to the opportunity to a sound basic education.

¶ 7 Accordingly, we affirm and reinstate the trial court's 10 November 2021 Order's directive instructing certain State officials to transfer the funds necessary to comply with Years 2 and 3 of the State's Comprehensive Remedial Plan. We vacate in part and reverse in part the trial court's April 2022 Order removing that transfer directive. We remand the case to the trial court for the narrow purpose of recalculating the amount of funds to be transferred in light of the State's 2022 Budget. Once those calculations have been made, we instruct the trial court to order those State officials to transfer those funds to the specified State agencies. To enable the trial court to do so, we stay the 30 November 2021 Writ of Prohibition issued by the Court of Appeals.2 Finally, we instruct the trial court to retain jurisdiction over the parties to monitor State compliance with this order. In so doing, we uphold our own obligation to safeguard the constitutional rights of North Carolina's schoolchildren while still allowing for our coequal branches to correct course in the years to come.

I. Factual and Procedural History

¶ 8 The long history of this litigation is well documented. Nevertheless, the extraordinary nature of the remedy we order today—and Legislative Defendants’ attempt to rewrite and relitigate the case's history—demands a summary of the equally extraordinary path that now renders that remedy necessary.

A. Leandro I : Establishing the Right

¶ 9 In May 1994, students and families from five rural North Carolina school districts united to sue the State and the State Board of Education for failing to provide adequate educational opportunities. These students and families—including Robert Leandro and his mother Kathleen, after whom the case would be named—represented students and schools at all levels of K–12 education, from Rollins Elementary School in Henderson to Carroll Middle School in Lumberton to Hoke County High School in Raeford. The Boards of Education of the five rural counties—Hoke, Halifax, Robeson, Cumberland, and Vance—likewise joined the students and families as plaintiffs in the suit (collectively referred to as Plaintiffs).

¶ 10 Specifically, Plaintiffs brought a declaratory judgment action "based on state constitutional and statutory provisions that entitle all North Carolina children to receive adequate and equitable educational opportunities, no matter where in the State they may live." Plaintiffs’ complaint alleged that "[s]uch opportunities have been denied to children in some of the poorest school districts in the State[ ] as a result of an irrational, unfair, and unconstitutional funding system."

¶ 11 To support this claim, Plaintiffs identified specific examples of inadequate educational opportunities resulting from inadequate...

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    • March 3, 2023
    ...November 2022, this Court issued its opinion in No. 425A21-2, Hoke County Board of Education, et al. v. State of North Carolina, et al. , 382 N.C. 386, 879 S.E.2d 193 (2022). Prior to the issuance of that opinion, the State moved to consolidate that case, No. 425A21-2, with this case, No. 4......

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